Inside the High-Stakes World of Commodity Trading

Overview

Some of the world’s largest companies by revenue – such as Vitol, Trafigura, and Cargill – operate outside the public eye, trading oil, metals and grains at scale. These private firms have quietly become central to global supply chains, recording substantial profits since 2022 as wars and sanctions re-routed flows.

Giovanni Serio, former global head of research at Vitol, joins John Lee and Katia Dmitrieva to unpack how commodity traders operate, why scale and flexibility matter, and how satellite data and real-time analytics have transformed market transparency. Serio also discusses oil price dynamics, the rise of non-OPEC supply, and why most trading firms remain private despite their size.